Security Issues Due to Vulnerabilities in the Virtual Machine of Cloud Computing

The virtual machine is a medium for provisioning cloud resources to customers. Cloud customers are accountable for configuration and security of the applications and the operating system running on virtual machines. The responsibilities of cloud customers include inbound and outbound traffic flow, access control, security configuration and practices. This work analyzes the vulnerabilities inside the virtual machine and security threats engendered due to it. Some of the security threats on a virtual machine are demonstrated with practical implementation on Amazon Web Service (AWS) as a cloud service provider. This paper also discusses general defense mechanisms for these security threats in a virtual machine.